


White Flags

by rufeepeach



Series: Red Lights [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, ace!au, aro!au, demiromantic!au, demisexual!au, hooker!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 20:32:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9565145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach
Summary: Four months after their night in Boston, Belle and Gold's relationship hits some emotional growing pains when Belle, for the first time in her life, is confronted with the scariest, most powerful thing of all: falling in love.





	1. Chapter 1

Belle hadn’t had a boyfriend in half a decade.

Not that George Aston could have been described as a boyfriend, per se. He was good-looking, smelled nice most of the time, and he knew what he was doing in the sack. That was about as far as that ‘relationship’ had gone. They hadn’t really talked about anything; there was no real connection. As far as Belle was concerned, a _relationship_ surely had to be more than compatible genitalia and a mutual unwillingness to communicate.

But her dad had liked him. Belle knew Moe worried, and it had comforted him to know she was being taken care of by ‘that nice, strapping boy’ she’d brought home one Christmas, so she kept him around.

He hadn’t asked too many questions, either. Belle didn’t think he had ever found out, in the six months they dated, that her mother had died a year earlier. That was another reason she’d stayed with him: at twenty, Belle had greatly preferred to fuck than talk.

After they’d broken up, Belle had spent the year she was twenty-one drinking and sleeping her way through the Boston club scene. That had been the first time she’d started calling herself Lacey, and Lacey didn’t talk about her feelings, didn’t hold hands, and didn’t leave a phone number. When her roommate, Ariel, had heard Mal was hiring, it had seemed an easy way to professionalise the lifestyle they were already living, and to make up for a distinct lack of postgraduate funding: fun in the present; security for the future.

The city, with its bars and clubs and restaurants where clients could take her and the swanky hotels where they’d go afterward, had suited Lacey. It had been exciting, exhilarating, and while she wore Lacey’s clothes, used her name and lived her life, Belle never had to peep out from the shadows.

Then she’d made the mistake of taking Mal’s last phone call. She’d been ready to just owe that final thousand and pay it off with her first library paycheque, when Mal had called with one last job.

All of Lacey’s clothes had been sold off or donated as part of Belle’s attempt to draw a line under that life and begin again. All she’d had that was date-appropriate was the pretty blue dress she’d bought for job interviews. It was no more modest or casual than her usual work clothes, but it was far more… her. Lacey was leather and lace, sequins and crushed velvet, low-cut shirts and everything – from pants to skirts to dresses – tight and revealing. It was an aesthetic a million miles from the flared pleated skirts, woolly sweaters, collared blouses and thick tights she wore on campus. It was another battle line drawn in the sand to keep one life apart from the other, perhaps to keep one from devouring the other.

She hadn’t realised how much those lines had mattered until Isaac had been smiling at Lacey, and Belle had smiled back.

Now, four months later, twenty-five and respectable, Belle was sitting in a small-town diner for the third time that week, opposite the same man – her boyfriend, older and dignified and faithful – who was always there, and they were about to order their usual.

She looked across at her date, studying his menu as if he didn’t have it memorised. It had been three months since he’d shown up in the library that morning, and startled her. Four months since he’d paid for a night with her, and she’d decided on an impulse to leave him her number.

She never did that. She _never_ did that. But she’d done it for him. And she’d been crushed when, for weeks, he hadn’t called.

Belle didn’t know how she felt about that.

Isaac asked questions. He liked to talk, liked words big and small. When he relaxed, he was expressive with his hands, and could talk animatedly about books, antiques, history, politics, even law or economics if she were brave enough to ask. He was the smartest person Belle had ever met. And while he definitely had some natural talent in bed, he didn’t seem to be constantly thinking about it. In fact, for all that their sex life was great, Belle rather thought he could quite happily live without it, so long as they were together. He seemed to really and truly like her for her mind.

It was strange, and new. Belle didn’t know how she felt about that either.

“You know what you’re going to order,” she teased, him. He was studying the menu so closely as if he could divine its secrets: as if it had changed since 1985. “And Granny’s menu isn’t written in Mandarin.”

He blinked up and he got that heart-stopping smile on his face, the little one she was sure was just for her. His lips curved at the edges, turning every little crease on his face into a laughter line, and his eyes lit up with internal warmth and light that spoke of complete adoration. All she had to do was speak, and he was hanging on her every word. That was another really strange, new, ever-so-slightly alarming thing.

They’d been going on these little dates for three months now, and she’d long since dropped the last vestiges of Lacey around him. Not that the persona had lasted long as it was: something about him just… drew her out of herself. The hard, bright exterior she’d cultivated for so long shattered like sugar-glass in the face of his soft, hesitant smile.

Belle knew she was a mess. She knew she was impulsive, and inconsistent, and found it hard to share her feelings. She was far from perfect, hardly the image of nonchalant glamour and easy virtue she had presented for the past few years. At some point she had assumed he would come down to earth and see her for what she was, and the shine would wear off.

And yet every time he looked at her, it was as if she was the only light in the world to him, the focus of all his happier thoughts. It was endearing, mesmerising: addictive. When he looked at her like that, Belle truly believed she could fly.

Belle wasn’t self-loathing by nature. She was generally comfortable in her own skin, she didn’t spend time fretting over whether she measured up to other people’s expectations, or obsessing over her flaws. But something about those eyes… she couldn’t imagine she was worth the devotion she saw there. She didn’t know if anyone was, or ever could be.

He was beautiful, in his own careworn, nervous, wholehearted way: nothing like George’s chiselled perfection. Isaac was slender and slight, twenty years her senior, with a supernova mind and the darkest, softest eyes she’d ever seen.

Belle was rapidly finding she preferred laughter lines to a square jaw.

“I’m just mulling over the avocado,” Isaac told her. His smile was lopsided as he looked back at his menu. “One day I’ll order it.”

Belle snorted through her nose, “Rule number one of eating out,” she said, “is to only order what the place specialises in: the further out of left field, the greater chance of failure. You order that, and then when it’s gross you’ll be stealing my fries, I _know_ you, and you’ll lose a hand that way.”

“Yes, well, I like to live dangerously,” he muttered, and then winked at her. Belle snorted again, a little laugh. Isaac was the most cautious person she knew, and she adored him for it. It allowed her to be quiet and cautious too, to stay in and read all night and have someone to talk about it to the next day. It allowed her to marathon her Netflix queue, and not feel bad about having stayed home on a Saturday night, which was sort of nice. Once or twice, he had come over and brought a bottle of wine. That was sort of nice too.

His hair fell forward, silver streaks just peeping through rich chestnut. He sighed, and rolled his eyes. “You’re right of course,” he sighed. “It’ll be a cheeseburger as always. Can’t have too much of a good thing.” He smiled at her, as if he was including her in that, and she knew his fondness for cheeseburgers was at least tangentially related to the memory they evoked. It had become sort of their _thing_ , like getting into rows over books, and making out in the back room of his shop on her lunch break. She smiled back.

There were so many words to say in response to that. ‘Yeah, sounds good’, was good and generic; ‘I’ll have the same’ would also have been accurate. ‘Extra pickle, right?’ to denote she was about to order for them both. So many ways to continue the conversation, so many safe things to say: a thousand innocuous three-word-sentences to keep them on dry land.

And yet, Belle thought of none of them in that moment.

His hair was falling in his eyes, and his voice was rich and warm, and he was still smiling from his dumb little joke. His hand covered hers on the table like he never wanted to let go, and yet it was casual, no big deal, as if it were a given. As if she could depend on it, count on it, his devotion as constant as the turning of the earth.

The wrong three words sprang to her lips before she could stop them. They were alien, unfamiliar, dangerous, terrifying, and completely unexpected. It was only a final, last minute check that stopped her saying them aloud, from blurting them out and thoroughly ruining everything.

When was the last time she’d said that? When was the last time she’d meant it? She knew she couldn’t mean it the way he needed her to. She’d do it wrong, she’d give him expectations, and Belle had always been terrible at follow-through. She knew she couldn’t be what he needed her to be, why hadn’t she seen that before? How had she been this stupid? Belle knew she wasn’t built for all of this, for the handholding and the sweetness and that constant devotion, and suddenly the room was cramped and the sweat was beading on her brow, and she couldn’t breathe.

“I… gotta go,” she said, the wrong three words (three safe words), and Isaac’s eyes widened, the menu folding as he looked at her in surprise.

“Is there something the matter?” he asked, concerned. God, why did he have to care so much? Why did someone with such a full, good heart have to waste it on her? “Belle?”

“No it’s fine, I just…” she gave a false-bright smile, and stood up sharply, wrenching her hand back and spilling her wine everywhere in the process. “Oh, shit!” she cursed, and started mopping it feverishly with a napkin, the wine spilling down her skirt. Her hands were shaking; she hid it by wiping more vigorously.

It was a mistake, she thought, god it was all such a _mistake_.

“Belle, don’t worry,” Isaac took her wrist to stop her, rising as well. “It’s fine, we can get someone to help clean it up. What’s the matter, sweetheart?”

The endearment made it all worse. It had started with that, hadn’t it? When he’d been her client and she’d been his whore, but he’d called her sweetheart and broken through all the important boundaries between them with just a word. With just that one word he could banish Lacey forever, and leave Belle standing there trembling from head to foot, out of her depth and terrified.

“I just have to go,” she said, and _fuck_ , she knew she was hurting him. She knew this had to be killing him. She didn’t know everything – she hadn’t asked, still so afraid of talking about anything that mattered, even with him – but she knew abandoning him would ruin him. And god, she didn’t want that. “I’m sorry,” she begged him to understand, to go cold, to do anything but look at her with those beseeching eyes that made it so hard to look away.

“No, no tell me, please,” Isaac stepped away from the booth, and took her by the shoulders. She looked up at him, searching his face, trying to work out what it was that had changed that had made such a huge feeling lurch in her chest. Was it still there now? Was it _enough_? Did it match what she saw in his gaze even now, that swelling and indefinable feeling that made her eyes burn and chest ache with it?

She’d had men look at her that way before, of course she had. She knew of at least five or six clients who’d fallen head over heels in love with her, and for the sake of their feelings and Mal’s profits she’d played along. She’d laughed, she’d kissed them: she’d let them make love to her while she fucked them. No man really expected a prostitute to love him, but most men were also more than happy to lie to themselves.

 _Most men_ : Isaac was the exception yet again. From the beginning, he had begged her never to lie to him. There was such courage in that, bravery he’d never believe in or understand. Isaac would always rather know the truth than believe a sweet lie. She thought he’d been lied to enough in his life – and told enough lies himself, to protect himself from a world that had never valued him – that he couldn’t bear to hear it from her. She had never told him anything true that he hadn’t accepted, without judgement or censure.

She’d never known anyone like that.

Belle had known so many men in her life. For work and for play, Belle had slept with athletes and politicians, executives and accountants, professors and trust-fund layabouts. They’d been kind and careless, smart and stupid, interesting and boring, handsome and ugly, old and young, idle rich and feverishly hard working. Some of them she’d desired, others had just paid her well. She’d seen some of them for months, others for just a few hours. All of them she had gotten to know very well, in their time together.

Never once had she wanted one of them to take her by the arms, look her in the eyes, and _know_ her.

Isaac was apparently the exception to every hard and fast rule she’d ever had. In that moment, Belle never wanted him to let go.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

“You’re worrying me, darling,” he told her, softly, and it wasn’t a tone of voice she’d heard from him before, but she knew it well: she’d used it herself with him, whenever they were in bed and he panicked. He spoke soothingly, comfortingly, his thumbs tracing circles in her sleeves. “Please, tell me?”

“I just… I guess I freaked,” she said, the panic starting to ease down again as she took a deep breath, “I don’t… date. You know that.”

“We’ve been doing this for months,” he pointed out, confused. “Did… did something change?”

“No,” she shook her head, she lied to his face, and she hated herself but she just couldn’t say it, couldn’t make the words come out. It was too soon, and she didn’t know if they were right, and while she wasn’t sure what they meant to her they knew what they’d mean to him. She didn’t want to hurt him: the last thing Belle ever wanted to do was hurt him.

He looked at her, eyes searching hers. “Colour?” he asked, and she looked down, smiling: it had been a while since they’d needed it, and it was so strange to be the one who did, but she was grateful all the same.

She considered it. ‘Green’ was a lie, because her heart was racing and she didn’t know what to do, but ‘red’ was wrong too. Red would mean they’d stop, and never revisit it. She didn’t want that either. She didn’t know what she wanted.

“Yellow,” she decided. Isaac nodded.

“Sit down again?” he asked, softly. “Please? We can talk about it or not, it’s entirely up to you. Just stay with me? Please?”

“You sound like me,” she accused, gently. He looked a little sheepish.

“Well, you sound like me,” he replied. “So let me try and help, please? You always do so well with me, after all.”

Belle swallowed, and nodded, sitting down again. Her hands shook; she clenched them in her lap. She felt as if one wrong move would set off a landmine, and for the first time she truly regretted their dynamic, how he relied on her. What were they supposed to do, if her knees buckled and she let them both fall?

“I don’t have anxiety,” she told him, although what she was feeling definitely felt like a panic attack.

“Okay,” he nodded. “I know that. Just… did I do something? Talk to me, please?”

“No no, you’re fine. You didn’t do anything. I’m fine,” she two truths and a lie, and hated herself for it. He was always so honest with her, so open, and she’d encouraged him to do that. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her or judge her, so why did telling him that she’d not felt this way about anyone, ever, feel so scary?

“You promised me that you wouldn’t lie to me,” he reminded her, another call back to that wonderful night. Things had been simple then: she’d known where the lines were (or had she?). Everything was harder now. “Please, Belle? You’re really scaring me.”

“It’s nothing,” she lied again, and this time she accompanied it with a smile. “I… yellow, please? We can talk about it later; we could go back to your place and talk? I just really don’t want to do it here.”

“Okay,” Isaac nodded, valuing the colour system above all. It had always protected them from accidental pressure, from miscommunication or misunderstanding. She trusted that he’d always respect that. “Should I be worried?”

“No,” she shook her head, as if any answer would prevent him from worrying, her nervous sweetheart. “No, I promise, it’s okay. Let’s order, alright?”

Belle quickly turned the topic to something else, and to her relief Isaac followed her lead, although she could tell she’d rattled him with her outburst. They ate quickly, and Belle was thankful for the comfortable silence the food provided, though it was only temporary.

As they walked home, Isaac reached out a tentative hand to hold hers. Belle wanted to hold back, to keep herself together: she clutched his hand hard, and refused to let go.

Why was this so terrifying? Why was the thought of what she’d almost said, of what they appeared to now share together, so deeply unsettling?

They were back at his home, her coat hung on the peg by the door, sat side by side on his sofa, before he dared broach the topic again.

“Colour?”

Belle took a deep, deep breath, and released it slowly. “Green,” she said, forcing the words out. Her mother’s old adage, well worn and so hard to live by, echoed through her mind: _do the brave thing, and bravery will follow_.

“What was it, sweetheart?” he asked, and she could see the relief at being able to ask warring with the anxiety of the potential answer warring in his face.

“I was just caught off-guard, I guess,” she said. “It just hit me all of a sudden that we’re a couple, aren’t we? I mean, you’re my boyfriend, I’m your girlfriend, we’re exclusive, all of that?”

“I… I hope so,” Isaac replied. “I think of us that way. Do you?”

“I hadn’t thought about it too hard,” Belle shrugged. “I like being around you, you know? I really enjoy our time together, when we go to dinner or we watch movies, when we go to bed… it’s all really great.”

“I know,” Isaac nodded, a bemused smile on his soft lips. “I was there, I know how great it is. Why are you saying it like it’s a bad thing?”

Belle took a deep breath, and released it again. All the clever things, all the smart, brave, kind things she’d thought of on the walk over shattered in her head. She wasn’t hardwired to cope with this. She’d never needed or wanted it, the cuddles and the conversation, the commitment and adoration and endless hours wiled away together. It had been an asset as an escort: she never felt tempted by the romance she faked for her clients. Sex was sex; the rest was for other people. Was that how Isaac had felt, but the other way around? He wanted love and companionship, commitment, and sex was just another way to show that for him.

Could a relationship between two such fundamentally different people even work? The thought that she was doomed to hurt him, to break him even more completely than he had been when they met, killed her inside.

Those three dangerous, wonderful, terrifying little words rose to the surface once again. She wanted to rip them out, vomit them up, scream them or smother them, anything to understand what they were doing here, now, after all this time.

“You’re okay now, right?” she blurted instead, and goddamn was it the wrong question, the wrong words all over again. His eyes widened and she couldn’t imagine what he was thinking. “I mean, when we met, you were terrified to have sex. And now we have sex a lot, and for me at least it’s stellar. So you… you’re okay now?”

“In what sense?” he asked, puzzled. “I mean, I _really_ enjoy our time together, Belle, you know that. I wouldn’t change anything. If you’re worried I’m only sleeping with you under sufferance, believe me when I say you’re wrong.”

“You’re sure?” she asked, knowing how insecure she sounded, and again it was the wrong question.

“I don’t want to sleep with anyone _else_ , if that’s what you mean,” he assured her. “I wasn’t eyeing up the waitress.”

“But why not?” she asked, getting at last to the crux of the matter. “I mean you know what you’re doing now, so that whole panic is gone. You’re not going to fuck up; in fact you’re really good at it. So I can’t be the only woman in the whole world you’d ever want to be with.”

He looked at her as if she was insane. “You are, though,” he said, and he said it so simply and with such surety, that it stopped Belle dead in her tracks. She paused for a long moment, staring at him, her heart caught between elation and despair. How could that be possible? How could any one person ever possibly be enough? How could anything she felt, or anything he felt, possibly be _real_? “Belle, I can’t imagine trusting or wanting or feeling the way I do with anyone but you.”

Belle wanted to kiss him, so badly it hurt. She also wanted to run as fast as she could, and to burst into tears, and any other number of uncharacteristic, terrible things. He’d put into words exactly what she felt, and it killed her.

“Okay, but see, I wasn’t like this,” she replied, her frustration lending more harshness to her voice than was right or good. “I mean, don’t you care that I’ve slept with half of Boston?”

“No,” he said, the simplest answer he’d ever given her. “I don’t. I mean, would care if you’d ended up hurt, or alone, or bearing scars you haven’t shown me yet. But everything you’ve told me about your past makes you who you are, and I can’t regret any part of you. So the question is whether you have any regrets.”

“I was very lucky,” she replied. “So no, I don’t regret it. It paid well, mostly I enjoyed it, and I got out before it could damage me. Mal runs a good service and cares about her girls; I was always safe enough. But I don’t see how you could be all right with it. Aren’t you… aren’t you _jealous_?”

“Are you lusting for your other clients now?” he asked her. “Do you dream about running off with the billionaire you saw before me?”

“No,” she shook her head, sighing, missing the point. “No I don’t. Not at all.”

“And you don’t care that you’re the only woman I ever slept with, do you?” he asked. “You don’t think of me as… as pathetic or childish, do you?”

He suddenly sounded so hurt, so scared and small and vulnerable, that she felt her heart crack in her chest. “Of course not, Isaac!” she assured him, looking into his eyes, begging him to believe her. “I just don’t understand, I… _god_ , this is hard to explain. I never had to think about any of this before!”

“About what?” he asked, his frown deepening, the hurt in his eyes unbearable. “Belle, you’re confusing me here, sweetheart. Are you… are you breaking up with me?”

“No!” she shook her head, her eyes wide with horror at the idea. That was the last thing in the world that she wanted – that was the problem! “No, Isaac, no,” she reached out her hand to him, and he slipped his into hers with a soft, relieved sigh. “Just, assume that unless you’re told otherwise, I’m never trying to break up with you.”

“Then what’s the matter?” he asked. “I’m trying to understand… you’re upset because you _don’t_ want to see other people?”

“I guess I’ve just…” she sighed, her shoulders slumped, and as they did Belle felt the very last little piece of Lacey, the one that had rested right over her heart, slip away and crumble into dust. “I’ve not been in a relationship before.”

“You said you had a boyfriend in college?” Isaac asked. Belle shrugged.

“George and I fucked around for six months,” she said. “He stuck his tongue down my throat at the cinema, he made nice with my friends, he was sweet in front of my dad. I mean, he was a good guy,” she snorted a soft laugh, and shook her head, “But I think he thought he was in some eighties frat boy comedy: one time I had to bail him out of the county jail for trying to steal a rival football team’s mascot.”

“Was he successful?” Isaac blinked, trying to follow along with her winding, sporadic logic.

Belle giggled, a little hysterical, “No,” she shook her head. “They barely made it onto the campus before they got caught. It would have been fine had he not been carrying several grams of medical-grade marijuana at the time.”

“Ah,” Isaac nodded, his lips quirking. “An intellectual equal, then?”

Belle smiled fondly, “He’s a good guy,” she repeated. “But… it wasn’t a _relationship_ , Isaac. We didn’t _expect_ anything from each other.”

“Need I remind you that my marriage was a total failure on all counts?” he asked. “I’m hardly a serial dater here myself.”

“I don’t just mean in a… in a dating way,” she tried to explain, tried to think through what she was saying. “Listen, we’ve gotten close, these past months, right? But I don’t know how to do that properly. I’ve never known how to do that, how to… how to talk about feelings and trust and be present, come what may. Whatever happened with your marriage, look at you and Neal! You know how to commit to someone, and do it right, and… and be there, all the time. You’re so steady and devoted and kind and I have _no idea_ how to do that.”

Isaac cocked his head to one side, a crease appearing between his eyebrows, disbelief written across his face. “Belle, are you worried you’ll _fail_ me?”

“What?” she blinked, unable to understand how he’d managed to put her fears into so few words, and make them sound so inconceivable.

“We’ve been together three months,” he said, slowly. “You’ve met my son, and his wife, and my new grandchild. You and I speak almost every day, and most days we spend time together. We have sex regularly, and exclusively with one another. Any night we can, we eat together, out or at one of our homes. This is a relationship.”

“All of this I’m aware of,” she said, a little testily. He looked at her intently, his eyes narrowing.

“Belle, are you trying to tell me you’re a _commitment_ virgin?”

Belle gaped at him. “Wh- what?!”

“I know,” he waved a hand and fell back on the sofa, covering his eyes with his palm. “I know, when I said it, it sounded ridiculous. I just thought you sounded an awful lot like me when we first met. Forget it.”

“No, no, it’s not… well, it’s not inaccurate, is it?” Belle admitted. She fiddled with his fingers wrapped around hers, her eyes on their hands and not on his eyes. She didn’t want to face whatever she would see if she looked up.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “You don’t really talk about yourself, Belle, at least not in an emotional way. I need you to tell me if I’m crossing any of your lines, if I’m hurting you.”

“You’re not,” she assured him. “I’ve just never… I don’t _need_ commitment, you know? I’ve never cheated,” she added quickly. “Well, not on any partner of mine, anyway. I’m certain some of my clients had partners, but that’s not the point, it wasn’t my place to know or care. And I’m not thinking about your marriage, either, although that’s part of it. It’s just that you have this ability, Isaac. You can decide to commit to someone, and then put your whole being into doing it. You made a family with Neal because it needed to happen, regardless of biology or anything else. When you dedicate yourself to something, or someone, you never look back.”

She was rambling, she could hear herself rambling, and she looked at him beseechingly as she finished her tirade, hoping to God he could hear some of the mess inside her in her voice. How much she wanted to get the two of them _right_. How greatly she feared that she couldn’t.

Belle prided herself on her bravery, but those three words scared her more than anything.

“Do you want me to not commit myself to you?” he asked, slowly. His eyes were on their tangled hands, unable to meet her eyes. His voice was mild, his face contemplative, but she knew how much it must hurt him, her grave, anxious, lonely Isaac, to say the words. That he said them at all meant the world.

“No,” she murmured. “That’s the problem, you see. I’m good at casual. I’m good at sex…” she smirked, “I’m _really_ good at sex. I’m good at not wanting more than that, and I keep thinking back over every man I’ve ever slept with, every man I’ve ever known in fact, and trying to work out if I could ever want with them what I want with you.”

“That’s what you were asking me,” he said, his voice soft with realisation. “When you asked if I was ‘better’ now. You wanted to know if once I’d learned how to want sex, I started wanting it the way you’re used to.”

“Yes,” she admitted. The sound came out small and weak, helpless.

“The answer is no, I’m afraid,” he said, reaffirming himself. “My fragile little heart is far too involved in the whole process, I think. I’m not sure how you separate it all out so neatly, but I envy it. What you did that night, how clever and kind and funny and beautiful you were, that’s what tipped the balance. I didn’t want sex for its own sake: I wanted it to be with _you_. Any other escort I’m certain would have been a disaster. But the thought of touching you, of holding you, of…” he blushed bright crimson but he pressed on, “Of being inside you, your light and your goodness. You were the best person I’d ever met – five minutes into knowing you, I wanted – I want - to be as close to you as possible. I want to do whatever I can to make you happy, to bring you joy, because your happiness is _everything_.”

“So you’re just having sex with me to make me happy?” she asked, her gut twisting with guilt. “That doesn’t seem healthy.”

“Now I’m the one being unclear,” he sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t mean that, not in the slightest. Sex with you is… it’s indescribable; it’s magical. I don’t want us to _stop_ doing that. But the pleasurable part of being intimate with you is more about you than it is about the physical act, if that makes any sense. It’s about… it’s being as close to my favourite person as it’s possible to be. It’s the two of us making each other happy, and making that magic together. The pleasure is a wonderful by-product of being close to you. If… if we were apart, I wouldn’t crave that closeness with anyone else, and the pleasure is so wrapped up in it that I don’t think I’d want that either. I just want to be with you, in any way I can.”

“I’m not as good as you think I am,” she warned him, begging him to believe her (hoping desperately he wouldn’t). “I can be careless, and selfish, and judgemental.”

“And I can be panicky, and paranoid, and a terrible coward,” he reminded her. “If you can accept even a fraction of all my gaping flaws, I can accept anything you throw at me. And I’m more than aware of your judgemental qualities, since you refuse to try _Star Trek_ again.”

She gave a helpless little laugh, knowing how it must cost him to work from her script, to force humour into a conversation neither of them wanted to have. He was trying to hard to be strong for her, to hold them together while she was weak.

The words swelled in her heart again, looking into those melting eyes of his.

She took a deep, deep breath, and tried to say what needed to be said. Tried to give back to him all that he’d given her. “My heart isn’t used to being involved,” she said, haltingly, slowly, the foreign language coming stiff and uncertain to her lips. “I don’t know how you wrap it all together, but it’s not a bad thing. You have so much more to give, so much more easily.”

“Belle, no, I-“

“Isaac, please?” she held up a hand. “I need to say this.”

“Okay,” he nodded, and took her free hand in his, clasping both of them to him so he could kiss her knuckles. It helped her, in a strange and sweet way, the affection grounding her.

“What you do for me,” she said, “How smart, and interesting, and devoted and kind you are… I don’t think I’ve ever been so much myself with anyone else. And it’s not easy; I fuck up more often than you know. But I’ve never met anyone I wanted to be this honest in front of, and that’s _terrifying_.”

“Tell me about it,” he muttered, with a small smile. She wanted to kiss him, promised herself she would, once she’d finished talking.

“I just don’t want to screw it up, you know? I don’t want to wake up one day and have this feeling go away, and end up hurting you. I don’t want to get us _wrong_.”

“Oh, Belle,” his eyes were brimming, his gorgeous face twisting, and then she did kiss him, because his hand was behind her neck and he was kissing her. He held her close, an arm around her back, and Belle relaxed herself into it so she was curled against his chest. This worked, at least, she thought: he had become an expert at kissing her in the past few months, and his arms around her always felt so safe, so warm and comforting.

How long had it been since she’d felt safe?

Kissing him was familiar, like coming home and taking off her high heels, making a cup of tea and letting her hair down. It wasn’t a performance, or an art form, or an expectation. It could be, when she decided to seduce him, or when they were trying something new, but Belle had always thought of kissing as a part of sex: as a prelude or a stand-in. But times like these, with Isaac, it had nothing to do with sex at all. She just didn’t know how to express in words what she could in a kiss.

She parted from him with a lump in her throat, and rested her head on his shoulder, wrapping her arm over his chest to keep him close.

“You didn’t let me get our first time wrong,” he reminded her, his hands making soothing circles on her back. “You held my hand, and you told me it was okay to get things wrong. No punishments, no judgement.”

“And you never wonder if I just did that to get paid?” she asked, her voice thick. It was a stupid question: she knew the past four months of experience more than proved that what happened between them that night had nothing to do with Lacey and her last client, and everything to do with Belle and her first… her first _him_. Her Isaac.

She couldn’t even think the word: it made that knot clench in her chest, panic and elation, fear and joy.

“You did it because you could,” he told her, without a note of uncertainty in his voice, as clear and sure as ever she’d heard him. “Because you were the only one who could. It’s who you are, Belle: you’re the sort of person who always does as much good as they possibly can. You’re a hero, my hero. I’m never going to be able to repay what you did for me, in just those twelve hours.”

He’d never sounded so firm, so sure. He was always so anxious, and she was always the one holding his hand. But for her, he was trying: she could tell he was trying to be the strong one for her, to let her be weak and fearful and unsure just for a while, just while she needed to be.

“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “It was all you. You let yourself open up to me, and that was all it took.”

“Rubbish,” he snorted. “It was nothing to do with me. You countered every moment of doubt or weakness with pure, brave sunshine. You saved me that night, from an awful lot more than celibacy. I’m just grateful for every second of light you give me, Belle. It’s so much more than I ever thought I could have.”

Belle chewed her lip, doubt still gnawing in her gut. “And if it turns out I’m weak and doubtful too?” she asked, haltingly. “If I’ve got as many issues and flaws, and I don’t know what to do now?”

“Then we’ll take it as it comes,” he assured her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She closed her eyes, and hugged him close, breathing in his warm scent of tea, old leather, and soap. It was more comforting than she could have imagined. “You don’t have to be a hero for me anymore, you know,” he added. “You can be whatever you need to be. I’m happy as long as we’re together.”

“So am I,” she murmured into his shirtfront. His hand stroked down her spine, soothing circles between her shoulder blades that really, really helped. She didn’t know when she started to cry, but his warmth was seeping into her slowly, and he made soft noises and murmured comforting nonsense, telling her it would be okay as she wept against his chest. “I’m sorry,” she hiccoughed, “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“Well, if it helps, the second time I had sex I cried like a baby,” he confided, a note of humour lacing his warm voice. She gave a wet little laugh.

“I remember,” she said. “I was there.”

“D’you remember what you said to me, then?” he asked, gently. She didn’t reply: she remembered, of course she did, and it was another piece of her she’d never intended to give away. “You told me that it was okay,” he told her, “that I was strong and brave and good, and that I could let it out because I needed to.”

“My mother used to say that to me,” she told him, her voice tiny as she shared something vital, something hidden and private, a piece of her soul she’d never shown anyone before. “That if something needs releasing, it’s okay to let it go. That crying is better out than in. ”

“She sounds like a wise woman,” Isaac replied. Belle swallowed, and squeezed her eyes shut.

“She was,” she said. The past tense still lanced through her, although it had been years since Colette’s death and she knew she should be used to the idea by now. She hid her face in his shirt again, and felt his arm tighten around her. He sighed, and she knew he’d caught the implicit meaning.

“I’m so sorry, Belle,” he murmured, and she knew he’d ask her more later, that he’d want to talk about it and make her share, but she loved that in that moment he didn’t press it or question it.

She hugged him as tight as she could, and felt him do the same. It was so warm and comfortable to nestle against him, and she felt safer there than she had in years. Belle closed her eyes, and let the slow, gentle rhythm of his heart lull her to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Over the few days following her ‘episode’, Belle tried to carry on as usual.

For that was what Belle had decided to term it, the night she’d had when, for reasons unknown (hormonal, mental, magical, who knew?) she had flown off the handle and made Isaac look after her: her _episode_. It was a comfortingly scientific word, evoking thoughts of medicine and curability, blamelessness. It wasn’t something innate to her that made her panic at the thought of committing emotionally to the man she was exclusively sleeping with. It was a hormonal imbalance, or a sudden illness, or something she’d eaten. It wasn’t her fault, so she didn’t have to think about it.

She was happy with her life the way it was, after all. Storybrooke should have been be a bit of a drag, what with having one bar, two restaurants – and one of them a diner which, though decent quality, barely had a ‘no shirts, no shoes’ rule – but in fact, the steady pace and predictability was comforting. By the end of her third month in town, Belle knew almost all the regular players by name and face, if not too well. Austere Mayor Mills, who smiled with hard eyes; Granny Lucas, who always brought a slice of pie and was thrilled to try new recipe books; sweet, fluttering Mary Margaret Blanchard; handsome, dependable David Nolan.

Mary Margaret was in the library as Belle was mulling this over, checking out books for her class. She brought them to the desk, and made small talk about the Miner’s Day festival. Belle smiled, and checked out each book, and determinedly didn’t judge their relationship: after all, who knew how many homes she’d wrecked in her last job? At least Mary Margaret had done it for love, not profit.

“Would you like to buy a candle?” Mary Margaret asked, when Belle was done. She pulled a thick, high-quality white candle from her oversize handbag, and offered it. “It’s for the nuns.”

“Sure,” Belle smiled, and Mary Margaret’s face lit up.

“Really?”

“Why, are they explosive?” Belle teased, “Any reason I shouldn’t?”

“N-no of course not!” Mary Margaret gushed, “I’m sorry I just…” her face fell, but she tried to keep her smile bravely in place. “People aren’t too receptive… considering.”

“Oh,” Belle frowned, and remembered Isaac’s warnings about Storybrooke’s puritanical views about sex. But Mary Margaret was so sweet! Belle had always been of the philosophy that cheating was a symptom of a bad relationship – if it was meant to last, then neither would play away. “Well, fuck ‘em,” she said, grinning, letting a little Lacey come through and seeing Mary Margaret smile nervously at the profanity. “You do you, you know? Kathryn deserves better than a relationship where her husband wasn’t happy anyway.”

“I… I guess,” Mary Margaret looked a little uncomfortable, and Belle sighed internally. There were a lot of ancient priests and community leaders who had a lot to answer for, making sex a crime.

“Look, is infidelity a good thing in itself? No, of course not. But sometimes it takes… sometimes you can think you know yourself, right? You can think you know what you want, who you are, what you need. You’ve got your battle lines drawn and you’re safe and sound, and then something comes along and it all changes on you. And then you make stupid choices. It happens.”

“I guess,” Mary Margaret said again. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…”

“Change hurts,” Belle cut her off, because someone goddamn needed to hear it and Mary Margaret was as good a candidate as any. “But what’s the alternative? Denying yourself, and someone you care about, something you both need to be happy because it might cause some pain at first?”

“We shouldn’t have lied about it,” Mary Margaret replied, her voice soft and so, so guilty, that it made Belle retreat back and swallow hard, wondering if she’d pushed too far. She didn’t want to scare the poor thing. This wasn’t her place, anyhow: she just thought someone needed to let Mary Margaret off the hook for a second.

“No,” Belle agreed. “No, the lying’s the bad part, isn’t it? But you’re clearly sorry you did, and you’re honest now. You and David are together, they’re getting divorced, and I promise Kathryn will find something better. Sometimes… sometimes we think we’re doing okay, but we’re trapped in a life someone else chose for us, someone we used to be. And then someone comes along, and it makes you question the whole thing. That life was safe, it was reliable, and you didn’t have to worry about spoiling it, but it was also wrong. You’d outgrown it. Is it worth trapping yourself in that place, just to save the growing pains?”

“No,” Mary Margaret stood up taller, and Belle saw a little steel enter her spine, her chin rising. “No, it’s not. We shouldn’t have lied, and I’m so sorry we did but… but you’re right. Change can be good, even if it hurts.”

“Thatta girl!” Belle cheered, and tried hard to believe her own rhetoric. “And if anyone else gives you shit, send them my way, I’m more than happy to have a word. You got any more of those, by the way?” she asked, nodding to Mary Margaret’s candles, “I have a few more dollars I can donate.”

“They’re great for blackouts,” Mary Margaret nodded, beaming as she pulled out four more candles and set them on the desk. It was amazing what a little support could do for a lost soul. “Ten bucks okay?”

“Aces,” Belle grinned, and handed the money over. “Although, we have a backup generator,” she added, her eyes on the candles. “So I have better plans for these.”

An idea had come into her head: she wondered how Isaac would react to the brand-new lingerie she’d bought with her paycheque, and a room full of candles. He’d been so sweet during her episode; he deserved a treat. She wanted to spoil him.

“Oh!” Mary Margaret blushed. “With… with _Mr Gold_?”

Belle didn’t miss how her voice stammered over his name, a little fearful, and she almost wanted to burst out laughing.

“Well we are together,” she said, slowly. “So yeah, I was going to use them for mood lighting.”

“I just… I’m sorry, you’ve been so kind to me,” Mary Margaret said in a rush, and Belle felt her hands tighten just a little on the desk. If the timid little schoolteacher said one bad word about Isaac, she was going to have bigger problems than puritanical New England sexual mores. “I just have to ask… is he as scary in private as he is on rent day?”

Belle gaped in confusion. She was expecting some slur about his shyness, or his disability, or something equally insulting. The word ‘scary’ went with Isaac the way Oreos went with lava: they were such alien concepts that Belle couldn’t imagine a situation where the two would be in the same vicinity.

Then she thought about it, really thought about it. His biting sarcasm with strangers; the way he preferred to stand, an aloof shadow in those sexy-as-hell dark suits rather than engage; the way he’d told her, all those months ago, that people in town hated him for running a successful business without being gregarious and likeable.

How many people liked their landlord, anyway? Belle shook her head: apparently what she thought of as the sexy icing on a wonderful, soft, gorgeous cake, Mary Margaret saw as the monster under her bed.

“You have to get to know him,” she said at last. “And remember he isn’t a people person. He takes a little effort, but dear God, he’s worth it. He’s a good man, under that shell. Like all of us, he’s more than what reputation would make him.” She gave Mary Margaret a pointed look.

Mary Margaret nodded, and even looked somewhat contemplative. “I guess,” she said, again. “Anyway, I have to go. Thanks for buying the candles and… and for the advice, it means a lot.”

“Any time,” Belle smiled, and watched as Mary Margaret left and closed the door behind her.

Sometimes, Belle wondered if she’d entered the wrong profession. Maybe sex therapy would have been a more natural line of work. Which, of course, dragged her back to thoughts, once again, of her _episode_ a few days previous.

Was that all this discomfort was: a fear of change, like she’d warned Mary Margaret about?

But Belle had dealt with change easily enough in the past: she’d gone to college in the States not six months after her mother’s death, and after a brief transitional period life had gone on. She’d become a sex worker, slept with half of Boston (professionally or recreationally, although lately more of the former than the latter) and had no problems at all with what had been a fairly unstable lifestyle.

Could these just be growing pains, then, her body shifting and shaping itself to settle down?

No, it wasn’t just the change itself that was causing this churning in her gut. Whatever it was, it was Isaac-related. Belle sighed: she knew what nice Dr Hopper would say, if she took an appointment with him. He’d hear ‘my mother died when I was eighteen, and I’ve not had a successful committed relationship since’ and hear ‘I haven’t processed her death, this is about grief’. Belle had taken enough Psych 101 classes to know that.

She missed Colette. Of course she did. Moe was sweet and a little fumbling, but Belle had always been her mother’s daughter. It just didn’t sit right, that explanation of why she was how she was. It felt too easy, and it didn’t explain how little her view of relationships had really changed before and after. She hadn’t been a virgin when she went to college, and her two high school relationships had both fizzled out because she forgot to call, or she got distant, or she had better things to do to hold some boy’s hand and pretend to be his sweetheart. It had all felt so false, so dishonest.

Sex was honest, at least – Belle very rarely had to fake it once she’d learned how to sort herself out. And faking an orgasm was a damn sight easier than faking affection.

So what was she doing with Isaac, then? Why was she buying candles to make the bedroom romantic and soft for him; why was she ready to deck Mary Margaret to defend his honour?

Those three terrifying words swelled yet again. She forced them back down.

She was due at his place at eight, so she took the candles up to her apartment with her and freshened up while she waited. She couldn’t go over beforehand: Neal and Emma were spending the afternoon with Isaac, so he could spend time with his grandson. Belle knew Isaac would be delighted if she came by early, but he’d be the only one.

Emma had clocked her the moment they’d met, the way only a cop could. Just Belle’s luck that Ariel’s arresting officer, the one night she’d been busted for solicitation and Belle bailed her out, would be married to her boyfriend’s son. It had been the most awkward breakfast of Belle’s life, trying to make small talk with Neal and Isaac while Emma stared daggers at her. The next time they’d met, at the supermarket, Belle had known the moment Neal saw her that Emma had told him.

They didn’t approve. Belle could understand that: after what had clearly happened with Isaac’s wife, ‘gold-digging whore’ was both a likely and half-true assumption. She had been a whore. It was how they met. The insulting, if predictable, insinuation that his money was a factor was the part Belle took issue with.

“He could be a peasant for all I care,” she muttered to herself, dragging a brush through her curls and trying to tame them into something respectable. “And we always go Dutch anyway.”

She stared at herself in the mirror, and tried to see what Neal saw. She was young – twenty years Gold’s junior, younger than Neal in fact – and attractive. She had been a sex worker until five minutes ago, and prejudice was alive and well. Neal didn’t know her financial status, but she clearly wasn’t independently wealthy. Isaac was older, lonely, extraordinarily wealthy, and desperate for companionship. And he had a recent precedent of committing to women who were after his money.

“Okay, so not a hard equation, then,” she rolled her eyes, and finished with her hair, tossing it a little to even out the curls. She still wore the same skirt and blouse she’d worn all day, but she’d changed her serviceable underwear for her pretty new lingerie.

She wouldn’t mind what a former cop and her husband thought of her, were it not for their connection to Isaac. Isaac loved Neal more than anything in the world: they were family, far closer than Belle and her father. She didn’t think Isaac would leave her on Neal’s word – he was too devoted, too kind, and had too much backbone for that – but she knew it hurt him that they didn’t get on. Neal had to have spoken to him by now, tried to convince him out of being with her. That they were still together said a lot for the strength of Isaac’s regard for her, his faith and trust in her, but she knew it made him unhappy that there was bad blood between those he cared for, even if he didn’t say it.

“So it comes down to commitment, again, then,” she said, trying to pep talk herself, to rationalise her thoughts aloud rather than untangle her mental knots. “If I commit to Isaac, I also commit to his family. I have to make Neal trust me.”

It seemed simple, when put like that.

Neal sure as hell wasn’t the cause of her anxiety. She’d faced enough people in her life willing to shame others for their work, for their choices, for what they did with their bodies. Even though she didn’t actually think, with Neal anyhow, that it was prejudice that informed his scowling. She hoped Isaac would raise a better child than that. She hoped it was protectiveness, and in that she knew they were alike: she too would loathe anyone who hurt him.

At seven-thirty, she left the library with her overnight bag full of candles – still no pyjamas, she might be dating a pessimist but she was an optimist, and she knew his shirts were comfy enough if needs be – and headed to Isaac’s.

Her heart sank when she rounded the corner, five minutes early, and saw Neal and Emma just leaving. She was tempted to hide in the bushes like a teenager caught sneaking in, but she held her ground. They knew she and Isaac were a couple; they knew she came over sometimes.

The door closed by the time she was in sight of them, and she hated how they stiffened when they saw her. She smiled, brightly. She had nothing against them, after all: this was their problem, and one she had done nothing to create. Since when did Belle French care what anyone thought of her?

“Hey, Belle,” Emma said, as they passed her with the pram.

“Hi,” she stopped, pointedly, so they had to stop too. Henry was in his pram, fast asleep. Belle beamed down at him: Henry, at least, didn’t hate her. “Gosh, how he’s grown!”

“Babies do that,” Neal replied. His voice was friendly, but flat: it didn’t encourage conversation. Belle ploughed on anyway, refusing to fuel their dislike.

“He must be eating everything in sight!” she added. Emma gave her an odd look.

“We’re doing fine,” she said. “It’s not a problem.”

Belle winced. She felt about three feet tall.

Neal sighed, and offered a real smile, “He eats a lot,” he agreed, and Belle relaxed just a little at the unexpected warmth. “And sometimes he even sleeps, too.”

“That must be nice,” Belle agreed. “To finally get some real sleep yourselves, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Neal agreed. “Well, we’d better be going anyway.”

“Oh yeah, okay, bye!” Belle all but scrambled away from them, trying to look cheery and polite and failing. She didn’t miss how the pair of them looked relieved to be away from her.

Okay, so maybe making Isaac’s family like her wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. Henry was cute, though. Maybe they’d let her babysit. They were good people – she knew that, because they loved Isaac and Isaac loved them – and they had a reason to be wary. And they had a newborn: they had to be exhausted, which would mean less patience.

Usually she’d still say ‘fuck it’ and refuse to give two shits what anyone thought of her. But Isaac needed them to get along. Isaac being in her life meant Neal, Emma and Henry along with him. So she had to find a way to convince them that she wasn’t Mila.

At least Isaac was happy to see her, when he opened the door. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Belle beamed. He looked so handsome, framed in the golden light of his hallway, and for a moment nothing else mattered. He still had that smile, like she lit up his world, and he’d stripped down a little – likely in deference to the baby – so his expensive tie and jacket were gone. In his shirtsleeves he almost looked relaxed.

She could smell something wonderful coming from inside – dinner, she expected – and her stomach growled. “You gonna let me in?” she asked. He was staring at her, and started when she spoke.

“Oh yes of course!” he moved aside quickly, and she giggled as she came inside.

“No, no, I’m taking that as a compliment,” she said, as she hung up her coat. “Boyfriend stunned by outfit, forgets to breathe.”

He laughed, an exhale of air and of tension she hadn’t seen him hold. She turned to look at him, to smile and reassure him that everything was all right. That she wasn’t angry with him for pausing.

“You’re always stunning,” he said. And Belle, who had heard her appearance complimented by a hundred different men – and by Isaac, almost every day – blushed like it was the first time she’d ever heard it. He always just looked as if he really meant it.

She stepped closer, and took one of his hands in hers. “Dinner smells amazing.”

“Duck with sweet potatoes and plum sauce,” he told her.

“That sounds very fancy,” she said. “You’re spoiling me.”

“You never let me spoil you,” he replied, squeezing her hands tight. “This I just had to stick in the oven an hour ago, it’s not a big production.”

Belle swallowed hard, and kept her eyes on his, her smile bright. She wanted to kiss him, to keep from saying what she needed to say. It seemed as though that sea wall she’d built to keep out the tide only needed a crack to collapse, and now every little bit of truth, every old story and every painful memory, wanted to seep through.

Dinner was just dinner; a good smell and an hour’s work were only standard, when someone offered to cook, and she knew Isaac genuinely enjoyed cooking for her. Had this happened before, these memories of lean cuisine meals shoved in the microwave after hospital visits, the kitchen cold and dark once Colette was too sick to cook, flashing before her eyes? Had she ever stopped to think before how rare it really was, to eat a home-cooked meal that didn’t consist of ramen noodles or bacon and beans on toast?

“You do spoil me,” she said, softly. He’d never understand: he couldn’t. He was sold on the same lie as Mary Margaret, that he was at best aloof and unlikeable, at worst a cowardly, miserable wreck. She didn’t think he’d ever be able to make him understand what a rarity he was, how good and how kind.

“You deserve better than anything I have to offer,” he replied, but there was a smile playing about his lips, that said she’d at least convinced him that he had her, that whatever con he felt he’d pulled off, he’d kept her. She shook her head, nose wrinkling, and then she did kiss him, because she couldn’t help herself. She smiled the little moan in the back of his throat as his lips parted hers.

They kissed in the hallway like that for long moments, until they had to part for breath. She rested her forehead against his, pulling his head the short distance down to hers. He was only a little taller than her, and she really liked that, because it made him easier to kiss, it made them a better fit. Sometimes it felt as if his body had been perfectly made to match hers.

Yet more feelings Belle had no clue what to do with.

Belle probably could have stood there forever, with his hands on her waist and her fingers twisting the soft hair at the back of his neck, his breath meeting hers and the warmth of his body melting into hers. Forget questions, forget bad memories; forget Neal and Emma’s suspicions and her own doubts. It all faded into white noise, with Isaac so close.

The kitchen timer blared through the silence. And he sighed, regretfully pulling back. “Best not burn dinner,” he said, as if he were apologising for something. Belle smiled, and took his hand.

“Lead on, then.”

He gave her an odd look, as if there was something off about her appearance, something he couldn’t place. “Don’t you want to take your shoes off?” he asked.

She looked down at her heels. They weren’t the ones she wore all day, with a thicker heel that was comfortable to stand in. She’d changed in her apartment into a killer pair of blue satin pumps, which happened to look fantastic when paired with the lingerie she wore beneath. She shook her head.

“I think for once, I’m going to leave them on,” she said. His eyebrows met his hairline, but he didn’t question it. “I ah, I have a bit of a surprise for later,” she teased.

“And your shoes are part of it?”

She winked, “There’s a reason they’re called ‘fuck-me’ pumps, right?”

God, it was great how easily she could make him blush and stammer. It was a good thing he wasn’t drinking anything, she thought, or he could choke on it. “Isaac?” she prompted, when he didn’t say anything.

“As… as long as you’re comfortable,” he managed. She grinned.

“Well, not planning to be standing long,” she said.

“And you don’t have to do-“

She shushed him, putting a finger to his lips. “I want to,” she assured him. “I want to give you something as good as what you give me.” She watched him carefully, eyes searching his. “Colour?” she checked, pulling her finger back.

“Green,” he assured her, immediately. She beamed, and kissed him again. This wasn’t one of their comforting, affectionate, homecoming kisses. This was a kiss full of intent, a kiss meant to wind them both up a little, passionate and full of heat. His cane dug into her waist as he clutched her to him, kissing her back with just as much urgency. It had taken Isaac a while to get the hang of this part, the breathless passion, hot blood and anticipation part, but now he had he took Belle’s breath away.

She had to wrench herself back from him, leaving his lips swollen and eyes glazed. “We… ah,” she swallowed hard, and tried to remind herself she couldn’t have him for dinner. He was delicious. “We should eat.”

He nodded, and led her to sit at the dining table while he served up dinner. It tasted as amazing as it had smelled, and for a moment the heat that was collecting low in Belle’s spine was tempered with something else. “You’re a wonderful cook,” she told him. She wondered if she’d ever said that before.

“I enjoy it,” he said, with a small shrug. “It’s relaxing. It’s comforting to have something to do with my hands.”

Belle was about to make a salacious comment about how good he was with his hands, how hot it was when she was what he did with them.

“Like the spinning wheel,” she said, instead. She wasn’t sure what made her say it, but it surprised them both.

“Yes,” he said, once he’d gotten over his surprise. His eyes turned soft and sad. She hadn’t mentioned it since he’d told her that first night. They talked all the time, but it was about books and music, about his antiquities and her travel stories. They talked about Storybrooke and their days, and what they wanted for dinner, and how Henry laughed when Neal handed him to Isaac the first time.

They didn’t talk about the spinning wheel, or Australia, or their childhoods, or parents long departed. Not until now, it seemed.

“I like that you cook for me,” she said then. “Not just because the food’s delicious but because no one has since my mother died. I can’t cook, and neither can my dad. I was applying to college when she got sick, and I don’t think he’s touched anything but the toaster and the microwave since. My aunt makes his meals every week and puts them in the freezer.”

Her voice caught on the last words, remembering her last visit home, and how hard Moe had worked to keep her from worrying. His business was going fine, and he had Belle’s cousin working for him now as an apprentice, so he didn’t need her to send him money. He was still big, and his hugs still smelled like soil and pollen. But his broad smiles were weak, and a little hollow. The house wasn’t clean; the cupboards were bare. It was as if when Colette died, so did his ability to care about their home.

Isaac took her hand in his, and squeezed it tight. It seemed now she had started telling him things, it would be harder than she had expected to stop. She’d never told anyone that.

“My father left when I was eleven,” he told her, in return. “I learned to cook because my aunts couldn’t, and I was sick to death of living on spaghetti hoops and corned beef hash, the two things they could make. So I cooked for them.”

“He just left you with them?” Belle asked. Isaac shook his head.

“Not him,” his voice was quiet, thick. “Social services.”

“Oh,” Belle stared at him, the implication clear. “God, I’m so sorry Isaac. I can’t imagine what that was like.”

He shrugged, “Long time past now,” he said, in a way that said it very much wasn’t. “I… I remember seeing him walk away, from the steps of that old house. It was cold, blustery, always is in Glasgow. He didn’t look back, not once. He was an angry bastard, violent and negligent, and I knew that then, too. But I wished he would.”

Belle rose from the table and wrapped her arms tight around him. He surprised her: he pulled his seat back, and tugged her into his lap, so they could hold one another properly.

“I’ve never told anyone about my mum before,” she told him, the words buried in his neck. “You just… I feel like you need to know how special you are, Isaac.”

He breathed deep, hugging her tight. His face was hidden in her shoulder, and he clutched her like he couldn’t breathe without her.

“You’re a miracle, my Belle,” he said, and he’d never called her that before but it sent a tingle down her spine. She wanted to be his; she was his.

She cupped his face in her hands, and kissed him deep, trying to communicate all she couldn’t say in that one kiss. She pulled away a second later, and held him that way, her thumbs stroking his cheeks. “Thank you,” she said, softly.

“For what?”

“For just… existing,” she said. It sounded so lame said like that, but she couldn’t think of a better way to say it.

He smiled as if he couldn’t believe the words she said, but was happy that she said them. His hands circled her wrists, and he stroked her arms softly, warming her through.

“Are you finished eating?” she asked, after a long, comfortable moment had passed. He nodded.

“I think so, you?”

She smiled, “I’m good,” she said. She slipped off his lap, and stepped back a few paces, cocking her hip. “I’m going to go to your bedroom and set up your surprise, if you’re alright to clean up?”

“How long do you need?” he asked, his eyes having widened a little. She still didn’t think he believed she actually wanted to sleep with him, she wondered if he ever would.

“Give me ten minutes?” she asked. He nodded, and she grinned. She blew him a kiss, and grabbed her handbag before making for the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3

When Isaac entered the bedroom, Belle could only just make him out. She’d picked up a few extra candles from her apartment, and tried to make sure they were the unscented kind so the room wouldn’t reek of clashing perfumes. They were almost all white, and matched the ones she’d bought from Mary Margaret. It still made the light in the room far dimmer than the bright bulb in the hall, and for a moment all she could see of Isaac was his silhouette.

“Belle?” his voice was soft, and she knew he could see her just fine.

“Close the door?” she asked. He nodded, and when the door was closed it was a lot easier to see him in the flickering light.

“Wow,” he breathed, and she beamed, letting him look his fill. When she’d seen the set in the store, she’d fallen instantly in love with it, largely because it was something she wouldn’t have worn on a job. It was a soft mix of deep blue silk and fine, dark gold embroidery, a demure balconette bra with a little padding and matching French knickers, and it covered far more than her scanty lace sets ever did. She’d been delighted to bring them home and discover they matched her favourite blue satin pumps.

Lacey’s underwear had been raunchy and easily removed, pieces that cost less than they looked and would be no issue to replace. This set, Belle had bought because it made her happy, even though it had been half her paycheque. It was beautiful, old-fashioned and a little fairy tale, a million miles from sheer crimson lace and matching lipstick. She’d also hoped that it would make Isaac’s mouth drop open and his eyes go dark, the way they had just then.

He was staring at her like she was a goddess, like he couldn’t believe his fortune, his eyes raking over every inch of her. She would never get over that, she thought: where other men’s first thoughts would be lust, Isaac’s were devotion.

“Surprise!” she said, a little breathlessly. He nodded slowly.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, as if he’d only just learned to speak. The way his accent thickened when his voice went low, when he was caught off guard, rumbled in her bones and sent heat shivering down her spine. He looked around at the candles on the dresser and the bedside tables, taking it all in. She’d even found some rose petals to throw on the bed, since she’d passed a florist on the way over. “You did all this?”

“I wanted to do something special,” she shrugged. “Do you like it?”

“I… it’s beautiful, all of it,” he nodded, slowly, as if he were moving underwater. Belle stepped closer as he did, so they met in the middle. She took one of his trembling hands, and placed it on her waist.

“Colour?” she asked, gently. He blinked, and shook his head.

“Green,” he said, looking over her once more, breathing her in. “Emerald, even, don’t worry.”

“I’m sorry for panicking a few days back,” she said. He looked at her in disbelief.

“Belle you didn’t have to do this to apologise for that,” he said. “You’re allowed to have feelings, and… and I like being the person you talk to about them. It’s part of having a relationship with someone.”

She nodded, and looked down, away from that too-kind gaze. “You like romantic things,” she said, and she hated how small her voice was, how fragile she felt. She needed him to like this, to tell her she was doing it right. “I know how to do sex, okay, the whole… the whole seduction thing, but-”

“Oh, I know sweetheart,” he said, tipping her head up with a hand under her chin, gently coaxing her to look at him. “I know you’re deadly with a French fry.”

She sighed, “I don’t mean that, Isaac. I mean the parts _not_ designed to get your dick hard and inside me, those are the parts I’m less good at. The candlelight and the talking and the rose petals are…”

“Are perfect,” he finished, finally seeming to understand what she needed. “It’s all beautiful, darling, it truly is. I’m just having a hard time seeing it with you in the room. You make everything else look dark by comparison.”

“ _God_ you’ve got game,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Silver-tongue, you have. If half of Storybrooke knew what you could do, you’d be beating the women off with a stick.”

“Only because you taught me,” he said, and then – to her surprise, to her delight – he winked, and leered in to whisper, “Everything my tongue can do, is because of you.”

She shivered all over, her eyes closing, knees going weak. “Fuck,” she muttered, “I’m supposed to be seducing you!”

He laughed, low and deep. He had relaxed so much since their first meeting, but this was a new side of Isaac. It was as if her revealing a little weakness had given him room for a little bit of strength.

Maybe that was what this was: not a clash, not a disaster waiting to happen, but counterbalance, two halves of a whole. Maybe they were supposed to round one another out.

He kissed her – another rarity, usually he didn’t kiss her until she kissed him – and she melted into his arms. They walked together back to the bed, his cane clattering to the ground as she sat down on the bed, and drew him over her.

His hands swept over her sides, trying to touch her everywhere at once. He rained kisses along her face, down the side of her neck, seeking the places he’d painstakingly mapped, anything to bring her pleasure. He was so considerate, so thoughtful: her pleasure was what brought him the most joy.

“Belle, I…” he gasped as she brought her hand between them, and cupped him through his slacks, his voice trailing off into a groan. He was half-hard already, just from the little she’d done.

“So you like the lingerie, then?” she asked, teasingly. He shuddered all over, braced on his forearm over her. She could feel the vibration down her body, and it made her ache.

“I like you,” he said, “But it does… highlight your beauty, somewhat. It’s not your usual,” he fiddled with the edge of her knickers, running the silk between his fingers. “I like it. It suits you better, somehow. You look like a fairy tale princess.”

“Maybe I’m done with Racy Lacey,” she suggested, and didn’t realise how much importance she placed on his answer until she had. He looked up at her, a little crease between his brows.

“My Belle, you’re lovely in lace,” he said, and kissed her, “And stunning in silk,” he kissed her cheek, and her temple. “Every part of you is perfect. But there is something special about this,” he said. “It’s even more beautiful than usual.”

She giggled, and looked down at her breasts, “It has padding,” she told him, helpfully. “That’s why it looks like they’re bigger.”

With permission granted, Belle laughed as he openly ogled her breasts. “God, you’re predictable,” she murmured. He snorted, and shook his head.

“You’re stunning,” he murmured. “I can’t help it if all of you is stunning, can I?”

“Hmmmm,” she bit her lip, and released it slowly, watching his eyes grow darker. “One of these times, you’re going to come to the library and find me in nothing but this and your reading glasses,” she teased.

“I think you’d give me a heart-attack, sweetheart,” he groaned. “And ah… I think I understand now,” he added. She frowned.

“Understand what?”

“The… ahh…” he blushed bright red, and she was entranced. “The ‘no no, leave it on’ thing?”

“Oh,” she bit her lip. She ran the point of her stiletto gently down the back of his good calf, and felt him shiver. “The high heels? I told you so, right?”

“You should be weaponised,” he muttered, and kissed her again, deep and slow. Belle let her foot drop back down, and wrapped herself around him, lost in the kiss. “You’re lethal, my dear,” he murmured, as they pulled apart, running his lips across her cheek, his voice rumbling through her as he kissed her earlobe.

“I use my powers for good,” she winked. “These days, anyhow.”

“You _are_ good,” he said, earnestly, kissing down her neck and across her shoulder, dipping to nibble at her clavicle until she gasped. He was such a quick learner, her Isaac, and so very responsive. He was murmuring praises as he went, leaving trails of fire behind him. “So very good, so strong and so brave, my perfect Belle.”

She sighed, and shifted, giving him more room. His hand kneaded one breast, gently, the pressure just right now after months of practice. Such a sharp mind, such a good heart, and such talented hands: Belle had no idea how, but she’d hit the jackpot when she met Isaac.

She started to tug at the buttons of his shirt, but he stopped her, catching a hand in his and kissing her palm. “I ah…” even in the dim candlelight, she could see he’d gone even redder. “I have an idea,” he said.

Three months they’d been sleeping together, and Belle had never heard him say that. She beamed at him, so very proud, and cupped his hot cheek in her hand. He pressed another kiss to her wrist. “Did you now?” she asked, her whole body warm and tingling, aching for him. He nodded.

“Could you, um, could you pass me a pillow?” he asked, and she nodded, frowning a little but unable to keep the smile from her face.

She sat up a little, and reached a hand out to fumble for the corner of one of his gorgeously soft silk pillows. He took it gratefully, and dropped it to the floor at her feet. Belle’s smile turned sly: she knew where this was going.

A pleasant shiver ran through her, as Isaac kissed her gratefully, and then sank to his knees at her feet, the pillow cushioning him from the hardwood floor beneath. His hands ran down her sides, tentatively, still so unsure. She made sure to sigh, loud enough he couldn’t ignore it, and casually relax her legs apart a little further. Just so he got the message, loud and clear, that this was exactly the sort of idea that should be encouraged.

His warm hands slid down her thighs, and then she was surprised when they caressed her calf and the underside of one knee, both coming to meet at her right ankle. She sat up on her elbows to look down at him, and for a moment was struck dumb by the sight of him, rumpled and beautiful with his mussed hair in his shirtsleeves, kneeling before her with her foot between his hands. Her breath caught, and for a moment time seemed to stand still.

Isaac looked up at her, those huge dark eyes of his full of self-doubt. She smiled at him, and nodded, agreeing to anything and everything he might want to do right then. He could make out with her shoe, and she’d probably enjoy it.

Instead, his deft fingers cupped her foot, and gently slid the stiletto off, placing it reverently to the side. “They don’t look comfy,” he said, by way of explanation. “Nothing should ever, ever hurt you, Belle.”

“Sometimes a little pain’s worth it,” she replied, and then he caught her off-guard again, shorted out her brain, because he lifted her foot and pressed a single kiss to the top of it, as if soothing the little the shoes always left behind.

Something about having him on her knees, kissing her feet like some sort of goddess, was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen. He repeated the action on her other foot, slipping the shoe away and kissing her instep.

“Sometimes,” he agreed. “But my plans involve you in as little clothing as possible. Their sacrifice was honourable.”

She snickered, and it turned to full laughter when he winked at her, sagging back on the bed with helpless giggles. She felt his fingers drift up her sides to the little buttons on the waistband of her knickers, and flick them open in an impressive display of dexterity. The silk slipped sinuously down her legs, whispering to her ankles where he pulled them off, and placed them gently on the floor beside him.

Belle took a deep, shuddering breath, and let her thighs fall open wide. But instead of the onslaught she expected, she instead felt his tender hands come to her right knee, lifting it a little so he could slip it onto his shoulder. He placed an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her knee, and she shivered: she’d never even known she was sensitive there.

He repeated the motion on her left, and this time she was ready for the kiss but somehow that only heightened the sensation when it came. She groaned, a soft high noise in the back of her throat, and looked down into Isaac’s eyes boring into hers. They were dark, rich and intense, flickering amber and chestnut in the candlelight. The glow softened his features, smoothed out some lines and accentuated others, so he looked warm and soft, careworn and beautiful. His hair fell as a soft mane around his face, rumpled from her hands, the silver glowing almost gold in the flickering light. He was stunning, and she could hardly breathe for the sight of him there, all worshipful adoration and intent, gazing up at her as if she were the only thing in the universe.

She swallowed, hard: this was new, all of this. Every time he’d gone down on her in the past, it had been the result of frenzied kisses, coaxing, even a little pleading on her part just to bolster his confidence. He’d kiss his way down her body, and then dive right in, driving her over the edge with his clever mouth and deft fingers. They had a good rhythm: she was vocal in what she wanted, and he carried out her instructions and improvised a little until they were a sweaty, sated mess.

She’d never lain still, and mostly quiet, tense with anticipation and desire while he followed his own inspiration. She’d never had him on his knees before her, slowing everything down to something melting, deep and intense. Belle was starting to think that maybe all this time, due to his lack of confidence and inexperience, they’d been having sex her way. Perhaps there was another way to do things, a way indigenous and original to the man at her feet.

Hadn’t he told her, during her _episode_ , that lust and devotion and romance were all twisted and interconnected in his head? Was this what happened when he felt brave enough to follow that through to its conclusion?

She was so completely fucked if so, in the best possible way. She’d never thought what might happen if he followed his devotion to her into their bedroom. If this was the result of trying to be open, of fighting to communicate and embrace these new, terrifying, wonderful feelings, then maybe there was a reward system after all. He hadn’t even touched her pussy yet, and this was already the most erotic experience of Belle’s life.

His lips trailed a line from her knee and up the inside of her thigh, and Belle whimpered aloud when he reached the crease of her thigh… and stopped, returning to the neglected thigh and doing the same. His hands held steady on her naked hips, brushing soothing circles with his thumbs into the ridges of her hipbones. She could feel his hot breath over her aching folds, and her legs shook with the effort not to clamp themselves around his head and drag him into where she needed him.

This was his night, she reminded herself, and he was quickly teaching her that patience was a virtue. She couldn’t keep her hands still, though, and the way his head leaned into her hands when she threaded them gently into his hair proved he didn’t mind. She didn’t tug him in, didn’t pull or push. The gust of his warm breath between her legs, the aching anticipation of knowing what came next but not when, sent her reeling.

“My Belle,” he murmured, low and rough and warm. He looked up at her face, “So beautiful.”

She swallowed hard, needing him to follow through more than she needed to breath.

He leaned forward, and Belle nearly jumped out of her skin at the single soft kiss he pressed to her cunt, his tongue darting out to just slip between her folds. She keened aloud when he dragged up, ending by closing his lips over her clit and sucking just a little. His hands kept a gentle pressure on her hips, keeping her from bucking against his mouth.

He pulled back, and then a moment later the flat of his tongue was lapping at her, up and over her clit and down again, over and over again in those broad sweeps, the point of his wicked tongue running between her lips over and over. She’d taught him that trick; he knew how quickly it would drag her up to that peak. He’d never gone this slowly before, though, or this thorough. It was a different kind of pleasure that rose in her, deeper and slower.

Like a bonfire, she thought hazily: he remembered.

His right hand left her hip, and she shivered as it brushed lightly over her thigh, coming to join his mouth over her cunt. His fingers gently stroked at her entrance, dipping in and out but never entering her fully, fucking her oh-so-shallowly with just his index finger. His lips centred in on her clit: sucking it, lapping at it, at one point his teeth scraped over her and she cried out, her body trembling. Everything was slow, a build-up: lips, then tongue, then fingers, then teeth, and never all at once, and never right where she needed it.

Her fingernails dragged over his scalp, holding him in place while she writhed and moaned. The pleasure was exquisite: molten, burning and not nearly enough to satisfy her craving for him.

“Isaac!” she cried out, and this time her pleading was not encouragement or impatience but pure instinct, “Please, please…”

He didn’t need to ask what she needed. Two fingers breached her fully, and she moaned low in her throat as he filled her, her body finally able to clench around something properly. His firm, deep thrusts – a third finger added now, deeper, fuller, oh god! - accompanied a redoubling of his efforts on her clit, and all he had to do was one more drag of his hot, soft tongue over her and she was screaming out, pleasure bursting behind her eyes as she thrashed on the bed, riding out one of the most intense orgasms he’d ever given her while he doggedly continued lapping and thrusting, prolonging her pleasure as long as he could.

She sagged, boneless and limp, the pleasure abating as he cautiously pulled back and looked up at her. His hair was a wild mess, tangled and mussed from her hands, and a sheen of her juices covered his mouth and chin. He was still on his knees, his pants tented and his hands on her thighs, and he looked so thoroughly debauched, so beautiful, that she couldn’t keep a whimper from escaping her.

He leaned in to kiss her mound again, and she needed to pull him back so she could see to him, there was so much more of her he could play with and she needed him close to her, needed to feel him… but this time, he wasn’t waiting around to build her up. She’d taught him so well, these three months of sweet exploration and patient instruction, and apparently he hadn’t forgotten a moment of it. Her cunt was oversensitive from her first climax, and with three fingers back inside her, setting up a faster and shallower rhythm while he sucked her clit, it only took a moment or two more for another orgasm to hit her hard, forcing her back to arch off the bed as electric shocks of pleasure raced through her.

She dragged him off her with her hands in his hair. “Please,” she panted. “I need you, please.”

He nodded, his eyes wide and fervent with desire that was close to ecstasy. He used a hand on the mattress to haul himself to his feet, and she squirmed back on the bed so her head was on the pillows. Her hands went to undo her bra, but he looked so disappointed that she stopped midway. “Leave it on?”

He shook his head. “Allow me?”

Belle beamed, and conceded, lying back on the pillows so he could look his fill.

His hands still shook when he undid his belt and flies, and stripped off his shirt. He didn’t like to be naked, did Isaac, but Belle didn’t think it good for him to have that fear over-indulged. It was his body: slender, built for dexterity rather than strength, soft in places and lean in others, and all beautiful. He had to live in it, to live with it, and while Belle knew his former terror and lack of interest in sex were mostly inherent to who he was, part of the fear had been related to his hatred of his body.

She didn’t have to pretend to eye him a little lasciviously while he undressed, licking her lips languidly and stretching out to distract him. “Very lovely,” she murmured, once he was naked.

“Something the matter?” he asked, only teasing a little. He hadn’t caught what she’d said.

“I was just objectifying you,” she waved a hand, and grinned. “Admiring the eye-candy.”

“Whatever you’re seeing, it doesn’t hold a candle to the view I have from here,” he returned. It wasn’t an acceptance of the compliment – and Belle thought it likely that he was so damaged by years of misery, loneliness and abuse that he would never believe he was really desirable, however many women would disagree – but it wasn’t an outright objection either. It was progress, and that was enough.

“You want the full pin-up?” she asked, with a wink. “It works better with the full set, but-“

His jaw dropped open as she arranged herself in the most erotic pose she could think of, propped on her side with her knee bent, her sultriest smile on her lips, her free hand just hanging suggestively over her hip.

Isaac gaped at her, his nakedness all but forgotten in the image she presented. She could see him hardening still further, his blood rushing south as she gave him the full effect. Maybe Lacey was gone, and maybe Belle was less promiscuous and more introspective, less prone to display and fonder of subtlety, but she hadn’t lost any of the skills she’d learned in her time in Boston.

“You’re going to kill me, my darling,” he murmured, gobsmacked. She ran a hand down her side, stroking over her skin.

“I’m terribly lonely over here,” she sighed, dramatically. Then, not knowing what terrible demon had possessed her – possibly driven mad by her two intense, amazing orgasms – she flopped onto her back and covered her face with her hand. “Oh, Rhey-ttt!” she cried, in the world’s worst affected Southern accent, “If y’all don’t touch me I’ll die, I’ll just die!”

Isaac snickered. “You know, I may not be prone to jealous displays,” he replied, trying to keep from laughing at her stupid antics as he finally joined her on the bed, sitting beside her. He eased her hand away from her eyes, and kissed her palm, holding it to his cheek as if she needed incentive to touch him. “But even I don’t enjoy you calling out another man’s name in my bed.”

“I guess you’d better hurry up and touch me then,” she challenged.

He rolled his eyes, and leaned in to kiss her deeply, taking control and plundering her mouth. She moaned, lost in the kiss, her eyes fluttering closed. Then she shrieked, and wrenched her mouth away from him: he’d sat up a little, and was running his hands over her sides and belly, tickling her.

“Bastard!” she cried, laughing uncontrollably as he tickled her. “You know I’m ticklish!”

“Minx,” he grinned, laughing with her. “You did ask me to touch you.”

She batted at his hands weakly, and eventually he stopped. She panted hard, beaming from ear to ear. “You know I’d far rather you than Rhett Butler, right?”

“I should hope I win over a fictional character,” he admitted, “all things considered.”

“You’re at least neck-a-neck with the best of them,” she teased, cocking her head to one side. “Although I’m afraid I’ve been married to Aragorn from _Lord of the Rings_ since I was ten, so you’ve got some competition.”

“Strange girl,” he shook his head, and leaned down to kiss the laughter from her mouth, finally shifting so he was lying beside her, letting her draw him over her.

Her whole body coiled around his, heat racing through her at the feel of his cock pressing against her stomach, rock-hard and ready.

He reached behind her, and deftly undid her bra: another skill he’d learned these past months. Gently, he slid the straps down her arms, and Belle shivered at the sensation of his fingers trailing over her skin. He folded her bra carefully, and set it to the side.

Belle giggled when Isaac’s avid gaze returned to her, raking over the newly exposed skin. “I’ve ruined you,” she sighed, smirking as she subtly expanded her chest, pushing her breasts closer to his hands. “You were a gentleman, pure as the driven snow, and I’ve corrupted you, and now you have a breast fetish.”

He glanced up at her, and she winked. “I have a _you_ fetish,” he corrected, and she grinned. His hands covered her breasts, and she shivered at his warm, firm touch, her nipples hardening again against his palms. He pinched them lightly, just enough to send a fission of pleasure through her, making her shiver and gasp.

Isaac lowered his head, and followed his fingers with his mouth over one breath, lapping and sucking at her gently, lightly, worshipping her breast with his mouth.

“God,” she gasped, arching her neck back, one hand fisting in his hair, “you’re so good at that.”

He glanced up, allowing her nipple to slip from his mouth with a slick little ‘pop’. She thought he might be the sexiest thing she’d ever seen in her life.

“I’m so glad I ruined you,” she murmured. “It would be such a shame to let that natural talent go to waste.”

He arched up to kiss her, blanketing her body with his. Belle eased a hand between them and lined them up, the head of his cock slipping and sliding against her swollen, slick folds. She gasped when he brushed her clit, still so, so sensitive from before. He was clearly as affected as she was: he shuddered all over, his eyes closing and mouth dropping open.

She wondered if they could both come like this: his cock teasing her folds, sliding between her folds, never quite entering her, never giving them what they both craved.

It was a question for another time.

Most nights, they added the precaution of a condom on top of Belle’s IUD. Sometimes, however, there just didn’t seem a good reason to put any barrier between them at all. “Alright?” she asked, her voice coming out high and breathy.

He nodded, his eyes still closed, his hair hanging around his face swaying with the motion.

Belle guided his cock down, and whimpered at the slight stretch of him just entering her. Isaac slowly shifted his hips forward, and they both gasped at the sense of completion when he was finally, finally inside her, filling her.

Usually, Belle would move her hips, and hold a hand at his, and establish the rhythm she wanted. He happily left things in her hands, to decide how fast or slow, how deep or shallow. But tonight wasn’t a usual night. Belle’s hands clawed at his shoulders, her knees bracketing his hips as she locked her ankles at the small of his back. He kissed her deeply, his mouth clumsy and half-open with pleasure. Belle wasn’t much better off.

Isaac pulled out, and thrust in again, as deep as he could go. He went slower than she’d usually ask for, and as he did it again and again Belle realised he was setting a pace equivalent to the thorough, deep devotion he’d applied with his mouth before. He kissed every inch of her his mouth could reach, his hands holding her shoulders, his soft breath ghosting over her skin. “Belle,” he breathed, “Belle, Belle, my Belle…”

He cupped her face in one hand, and kissed her again, deep and sweet. For a moment, his hips stopped moving, and he just rested there above her, his cock buried deep inside her, joined as deeply as two people could be. He gazed down adoringly into her eyes, and all that Belle could see, feel, or think about was him: his body surrounding her, inside of her, the taste of his mouth on her lips, his eyes so deep and warm and dark she could drown in them. He looked at her like she was the centre of the universe, the way he always did, but it was richer somehow, more intense with him inside her, his whole being wrapped around hers.

For a moment, Belle was struck by his words from a few nights previous.

“ _Being intimate with you is about being as close to my favourite person as it’s possible to be… what I want is to be with you._ ”

On its coattails, another memory surfaced from long ago, terrifying and beautiful in its newfound meaning: “ _You deserve that… the love and the making of it_.”

Was that what this was? Was this what it felt like, to allow someone who adored her, who was truly devoted to her, _make love_ to her?

Tears welled in her eyes, startling and hot. “Belle?” he frowned, terrified and concerned, but she shook her head, smiling for him.

“It’s okay,” she promised, her voice wet and thick. “I’m good, I’m perfect,” she arched up and kissed him, her tears wetting his cheeks. “My Isaac,” she breathed, her arms locked around his neck. “My sweetheart.”

He nodded, fiercely, and kissed her face, her neck, finally starting to move again, his thrusts a little harder now, stoking the deep fires he’d set in her, sending her gasping and spinning. “Yours,” he promised, as if it were all he wanted in the world, clinging to her as he rocked against her as hard, filling her deep and slow, over and over again as she held onto him. “All yours, forever, yours.”

She swallowed hard, a hard lump forming in her throat. She didn’t deserve this, didn’t deserve him, all that he was and all that he so selflessly gave her. She could shatter him to pieces with just a word, and yet he trusted implicitly that she wouldn’t. He gave her everything he was, and didn’t even expect the same in return. It was terrifying, and brand new, but god did she want him to be hers.

Those three words rose up inside her, and for just a moment she almost said them, almost let them break free.

“I’m yours,” she said, instead, the closest she could manage, a thin compromise. “I’m yours.”

He thrust into her hard, and a slight change of angle had him hitting a deep, sensitive spot inside her right as his pelvis ground against her clit. He kissed her right as she cried out, her whole body shaking and writhing beneath her as she climaxed, pleasure racing through her, white lights bursting behind her eyes. She felt him follow her over the edge, spilling himself inside her with a low groan. They kissed messily around whimpers and sighs, coming together, crashing and colliding, until the only solid thing in her universe was his body wrapped around hers.

Sweat cooled on Belle’s skin as they came down, and she felt him soften inside her and regretfully slip out. She could barely move, boneless and satiated as she was, every muscle in her body limp and relaxed.

Isaac shifted off of her, around to his side of the bed, and wrapped an arm around her middle, hugging her close. He sat up for a moment to pull the comforter over them both, and then spooned back up behind her.

“I thought you preferred to be the little spoon,” she whispered, drowsily.

“Do you want to swap?” he asked, a little concerned. “I don’t want to make you feel claustrophobic.”

“No, no,” she shook her head, too warm and comfortable to want to move. He was the only person she’d ever felt truly comfortable holding her since she was a child, and in that moment, after the emotional storm of the past few hours, the thought of being wrapped in his arms was too comforting to deny. “I like when you hold me,” she admitted, softly enough she could pretend he hadn’t heard her. “It makes me feel safe.”

He had heard her: his breath gusted against her neck, and a soft kiss followed as he settled himself close, his front pressed flush to her back.

“I love you,” he said, quietly.

He’d never said that before.

She’d known it, how could she not? But it had always been tacit, an understanding that if he didn’t say it, she didn’t have to admit it. She swallowed hard, trying to fight the rising panic in her belly. Nothing had changed, and yet everything was different now. She’d talked about her feelings; she’d admitted she wanted commitment. She’d told him about her mother’s death; he’d told her about his father’s abuse.

She’d lit candles, candles that continued to flicker now as they lay quietly, wrapped up together in his bed. She’d tried to romance him. He’d made love to her, and she’d… she’d done the same in return, hadn’t she?

This was a natural progression of all those smaller changes.

She hugged his arms around her torso tight, and didn’t reply. The perfect moment to say it back passed quietly, unmarked. It wasn’t quite right, wasn’t formed yet: when she said it, Belle wanted to know she had no regrets, no doubts in her mind. She wanted things to be perfect, the bumps smoothed out, the future clear and bright.

He deserved that much from her, her beautiful, wonderful Isaac: the man who loved her.

Eventually she felt his breathing even out as she stared at the candle on the bedside table, and wondered how the hell she had gotten here, and what in the world she was supposed to do next.


	4. Chapter 4

Belle didn’t know how a standard suburban house could look so threatening, but she swore this one loomed up out of the ground and blocked out the sun. She clutched her folder tight against her chest, feeling like a child again, hiding behind a book clasped tight.

Neal and Emma were home. She knew they were: she could see the lights in the windows, and occasionally shadows moved against the curtains. They were home, both of them, which was good: they both needed to hear what she had to say.

This could be a huge mistake. A hundred times, Belle considered turning and walking away, letting sleeping dogs lie and hoping that time alone could heal the rift between them.

It wouldn’t, though: she knew it couldn’t. Every step she and Isaac took toward a future she was rapidly realising she desperately wanted, would be dogged by Neal’s protectiveness and Emma’s suspicions. However reasonable, even noble, they were, they would get in the way of Isaac’s happiness.

Belle couldn’t give a rat’s ass about their perception of her alone. But no one, not even his own family, not even Belle herself, was going to stand between Isaac and his happiness on her watch. In the three days since he’d told her he loved her, Belle’s muddled feelings had crystallised into determination. If they were going to be in love, and have a future, and do everything she’d never thought she would, then she was going to give them their very, very best chance.

She raised her hand, and knocked three times.

“Neal could you get that?” she heard Emma cry from within, and a second later the door opened.

He stared at her. “Uh… hi.”

“Who is it?” Emma asked. Neal turned to call back.

“It’s Belle!” he replied.

“Belle?” Emma sounded confused, and a moment later she appeared beside her husband, arms folded. “What’re you doing here?”

“Can I come in?” she asked, anxiety knotting in her belly. Emma and Neal looked to each other, confusion and suspicion written all over their faces. Belle swallowed: as a rule, she didn’t tend to seek out places where she was clearly unwelcome. But this was for Isaac. For Isaac, she could be brave.

“Sure,” Emma said at last, and stepped aside, letting Belle through. Neal closed the door behind her.

“I won’t be a minute,” Belle promised, as Neal came around her to stand next to Emma. “I just… need to give you this.”

She shoved the thick manila folder she held into Neal’s arms.

“What is it?” Neal asked, holding it like it might bite him.

“It’s evidence,” she said, barrelling forward against the thick barrier of fear, the taste of adrenaline in the back of her throat. “It’s all the evidence Emma would need to give to the Boston PD to get me arrested for solicitation and prostitution.”

“Belle?” Emma asked, alarmed.

“You don’t like me,” Belle explained, her words coming out too blunt, tumbling over each other. “You know what I did for a living, I know you do. You recognised me the moment we met. And I know that means you think I’m going to hurt Isaac, because I’m young and pretty and I used to be a hooker, and that’s how we met, and he’s older and rich and has a history of being taken advantage of.”

“It’s not an unreasonable fear, you know,” Neal murmured, flicking through the file with a certain morbid interest.

“I know,” Belle said. “I know it’s how any reasonable son would feel, and how any good cop would feel. I’m not ashamed of myself. I didn’t hurt anyone, or steal, or kill, or even lie all that much. I’m not going to apologise for it.”

“He’s vulnerable, Belle,” Neal replied.

“I know that too,” Belle said. “That’s why we met, in fact.”

“Prostitution rings prey on vulnerable men,” Emma said, stiffly. “I’ve worked enough cases to know how they operate. You got paid to take advantage of his loneliness.”

Belle bristled, “He paid me to keep him company, to make him feel less weak than he felt he was,” she replied, trying to keep her temper in check. “Lonely people will do anything they can to feel less alone. There’s as many stories like that on either side of the transaction, by the way.” She sighed, and shook her head. “Look, I’m not here to defend sex work as an industry. I’m definitely more aware of its dangers and failings than you are, trust me. But it’s how we met.” She looked Neal dead in the eye, “Isaac hired me because he wanted someone to take his virginity.”

“Oh, jeez!” Neal cried, disgusted, “Belle that’s my dad!”

“You want the truth,” she said, severely. “I’m telling you the truth, to corroborate anything he’s already told you. You know that, though, right? His marriage was annulled, so he hired me, and we had our night together, and he felt things he didn’t expect to feel. He told you all that?”

Neal nodded, “Yeah and then all of a sudden you happen to pop up working ten minutes’ walk from his house. You just happen to show up again, right near a single man who’s rich, lonely, and attached to you.”

“I broke the cup I was holding when I saw him again,” Belle told him. “I was stunned. When he didn’t call me after our night together, I assumed I’d never see him again. I had the job lined up to work here well before I met Isaac: the employment contract I signed is in the file, you can see it’s dated a month before we even met.”

“Why are you here, Belle?” Emma asked, with a sigh. Belle swallowed hard.

“I love him,” she said, her eyes clenched shut, forcing the words out for the very first time, to the wrong people. “I love Isaac. I didn’t expect to, but I do. But you hate me. You don’t believe me. He told me he loves me, and I can’t say it back yet.”

“You… you love papa?” Neal asked, blinking. “Oh, god, Belle, is this…?”

“Yes,” she confirmed his suspicions, “That’s an insurance policy on my love for him,” she nodded to the file. “If I hurt him, you can ruin my life. It’d be mutually assured destruction.”

“That’s one hell of a pre-nup,” Emma muttered.

Neal’s eyes narrowed. “Belle, we… we don’t need this.”

Belle refused to take the file back, “You need to be able to trust me,” Belle said. “I need you to trust me. Isaac needs us to be a family, and… he loves me, Neal. He told me he loves me, and I want us to be together. But I need you to want us together, too.”

“I want papa to be happy,” Neal told her, his eyes as earnest as his father’s. They were so alike, for all they shared none of the same DNA. “I owe it to him to keep him safe. I failed last time, and look what happened.”

“I know,” Belle nodded. “I want you to be protective.”

“Good, ‘cause we are,” Emma added. “He’s a good man, Belle. He deserves better than someone who’s only in it for the money, or because they’re lonely.”

“He’s not paid for a single thing for me since we got together,” Belle said. “Since we became a couple, and I told him my real name, we’ve gone Dutch every time we’ve gone out. Sometimes I bring him lunch, or he cooks me dinner. I don’t let him buy me gifts or surprise me with anything I can’t pay my half of. I… I _hate_ that he paid for me, the first time we were together. I've told him I'll pay him back one day, although he keeps refusing to accept.”

“I know,” Neal said. “Papa told me.”

“He did?” Belle blinked. Neal nodded.

“A few days back, in fact,” he said. “Before you bumped into us outside. He was defending your honour. I know he loves you, Belle. He told us. But he said you didn’t want to hear it.”

“Well, now you’ve got the full set,” Belle sighed. “I love him, and I don’t know how or when to say it yet, but I do.” It made her giddy, lightheaded, to say it aloud, even to such a hostile audience. “I love him. I love him with all my heart, and maybe I’m not very good at love and maybe I have no practice, but he’d never had sex before me and now he's really, really good, and-“

“Stop!” Neal begged, “Please, god, stop.”

Emma laughed: the first laugh Belle had ever heard from her. “No, go on, give Neal nightmares for weeks.”

Belle smiled back at her, and felt just a little of the tension in the room lift. “I’m not going to hurt him,” she pleaded. “I would rather die than hurt him. If… if this relationship doesn’t last forever, it won’t be because I cut and run, or because we don’t… because there was no love.” She took a deep breath, “And if I make you doubt that, there’s enough evidence in that file to get me a criminal record, if not to secure a prison sentence. I’d never be able to work in any sensitive area: certainly no working with children, which would mean no public libraries, or teaching, or anything like that. Any employer would think twice. Mayor Mills would certainly fire me, so I’d never work in this town again.”

“You trust us with that?” Emma asked. Belle swallowed hard around a dry throat, and nodded.

“You love Isaac,” Belle said. “You know what exposing me would do to him. He’s not in there, by the way,” she added quickly. “Or anything about the agency I worked for, or any other client. That folder is just about me.”

“Take it back,” Neal shoved it at her, Belle stepped back. “Belle I swear to God, if you don’t take it I’ll burn it.”

“Then burn it,” Belle said. “But it’ll be your choice to destroy the evidence.”

“I don’t need evidence,” Neal sighed. “I… I know you won’t hurt him. The fact you’d come here and do this proves enough. I think… I think we’ve been a little hypocritical, here.”

Belle looked to Emma, confused, but Emma was nodding, a little ruefully. “Yeah,” she said. “But look, we’d have been suspicious regardless, okay? Mila’s only just gone and literally a month after it’s all finalised, he takes up with a beautiful young woman who can’t be making much money, and honestly seems out of his league. You can see why we’d be concerned.”

“It’s not just that though, is it?” Belle challenged. Neal shook his head.

“No, we… we’d have given you a shot, if Emma hadn’t recognised you. But the moment I heard my dad was dating a literal hooker… I’m sorry, you can see why that’d tip it over the edge.”

“ _But_ you’re looking at two people who met while trying to steal the same car,” Emma added. Belle stared at her, a stunned laugh coming from her throat. “I’m serious, I was eighteen and homeless in Boston, just out of the foster care system. All I did back then was steal shit, trying to survive. So I see this yellow VW bug-“

“The one parked outside?” Belle asked. Emma grinned, and nodded.

“Same one,” she said. “So I jack it open, and get in the front seat, and then this bastard,” she looked to Neal, “pops up over the back seat and offers me the keys.”

“I was acting out,” Neal shrugged. “Papa had to come bail us both out of jail like, a week later, when the law caught up with us.”

“How’d you keep the car?”

Neal snorted, “Papa, ah… he claimed it was his,” he said. “He’d met the real owners outside, and paid them off, bought the car and their silence in one contract.”

Belle’s eyes widened: that was a side of Isaac she’d never even imagined. She thought back to what Mary Margaret said, the other woman’s clear fear of him. she imagined being pressured by a harried, angry Isaac, dressed all in black, into signing a contract or there being hell to pay. She could suddenly understand how he’d gotten such a reputation in town. She also found herself just a little turned on… maybe, if she asked, he’d be willing to role-play that sometime.

“The cop I met the night we spent in jail, she was the one who convinced me there was a better way to live,” Emma added, breaking Belle out of her reverie. “Her name was Cleo, and she took me under her wing, even let me crash at her place until I earned enough in the Academy to get my own place.”

“Was?” Belle asked, softly. Emma’s face creased with pain.

“She ah… she was killed in the line of duty, nearly six months ago now,” Neal supplied, when Emma seemed to cave in on herself.

“Oh, god I’m sorry,” Belle reached out an instinctive hand to comfort Emma, and to her surprise Emma didn’t shrug her off.

“What we’re saying,” Emma said, rallying, “Is that we’ve all done stupid, illegal shit. And Neal and I didn’t exactly meet on the right side of the law, but Isaac did everything he could to keep us from suffering the consequences. Thanks to him, we both had a second chance.”

Neal looked at her, “Actually, for me it was a third chance, considering he also saved me from the accident. So basically, if you hurt him, we will hurt you,” he added. “But not with this," he held up the folder, and dropped it on the ground. "I'm not going to blackmail you into being with my dad. Papa trusts you. He loves you, very deeply.”

“I love him too,” Belle said, and it seemed to get easier every time she said it. it was still so new, and a bit alarming, and overwhelming. But it was real: real enough to risk exposure, and prison, and everything else she had by putting her fate in his family’s hands.

“I believe you,” Neal told her, and Belle’s whole body felt lighter.

Emma nodded, “I mean, I wanna believe you,” she qualified. “You gotta give me a little time.”

“I’m not planning to go anywhere,” Belle promised. “All I want is to be with him.”

“Then we’re burning this shit,” Neal picked the file back up. “And we’re considering it all forgiven and forgotten, alright? Two thieves to a prostitute, honour among criminals?”

Belle giggled, helplessly. “Sure,” she grinned, “one misdemeanour to another.”

Henry started to cry in the distance, and Emma sagged against the wall, suddenly grey and exhausted. “Motherfucking Christ fucking bitch,” she muttered. Belle snorted.

“You want some time to yourselves?” she asked. “Isaac’s got a tonne of inventory to do, so I was just going to go over to the shop and help out today, since the library’s closed this afternoon. I could take Henry with me, and we can drop him off on the way home?”

“Y’know what? That’d be great,” Emma said.

“Really?” Belle blinked, stunned. “Y-you trust me?”

“Henry loves his grandpa,” Neal said. “And we need sleep, we _really_ need sleep. So make sure and get papa to text us a picture of them together, so we know Henry’s safe, and it’s all good.”

Belle nodded, beaming, “I will!”

Neal smiled, and retreated into the living room, returning a moment later with Henry. He passed his screaming son into Belle’s arms. “He’s been fed,” he said, over the wailing, “He’s changed, and he’s just had a nap. He’s crying to be a drama queen.”

“Try bouncing him,” Emma suggested, “that helps sometimes.”

Neal went away again to fetch the rest of Henry’s baby gear. Belle tried bouncing the little body in her arms. She’d never held a baby before: she probably should have told them that.

Amazingly, as she got the hang of it with Emma’s help, Henry did start to quieten. “There we go, shhh,” she breathed, in her most soothing voice. “There we go. Hello Henry,” she beamed down at him, “My name’s Belle. We’re going to be friends, aren’t we? Yes we are.”  
An hour later, and Belle pulled up with Henry’s pram in front of Isaac’s shop. The bell rang over the door as she entered, pulling the pram through the door. “Hey!” she called.

Isaac appeared from the back, “Belle, hey, I- please tell me that’s Henry.”

“No, the day-care centre was having a sale,” Belle rolled her eyes. “Of course it’s Henry. Neal and Emma needed a break.”

Isaac looked confused, but he couldn’t help smiling at his beloved grandson. “Well it’s wonderful to see both of you,” he said. “Come on, it’ll be quieter for him in the back, and that’s where I’m working today.”

Belle followed him through the shop, manoeuvring the pram between the counters and into the back room.

“Why were you at Neal and Emma’s place?” Isaac asked, with deceptive nonchalance. Henry was sleeping peacefully, so Belle set him somewhere near the window, and turned back to Isaac.

“I was just smoothing some things out,” she said. “And they seemed tired so I offered our services. They want a picture, by the way,” she added. “They're cool people, you know? It'd be nice to be friends with your family. And they told me some very interesting things - apparently I'm not the only criminal in the family."

Isaac closed his eyes for a second, sighing and shaking his head. "My son and his sticky fingers," he muttered. "That made for a trying few years, let me tell you."

"You got him through it," Belle said, and put a hand on Isaac's arm. "And look at him now."

"I have a grandson," Isaac replied, as if he still couldn't believe it, unable to keep the smile from his face. It reminded Belle of the other half of her promise.

"Oh, yeah! Since, they don’t know me, they wanted a picture of the two of you sent to Neal’s phone to prove he’s safe.”

“Ah, that sounds more like Emma,” Isaac muttered, fondly. He went over to the pram, and lifted his grandson out of the little bed, holding him in his arms. He was smiling down at him, so much love in his face it made Belle’s heart ache.

She snapped the picture on her phone, and texted it over. She didn’t delete it.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Belle had slept in.

She had spent more and more time at Isaac’s in the past few weeks. For some reason the thought of going home to her empty apartment didn’t appeal so much as it had used to. It was a good little home for one person, but it didn’t have Isaac in it.

She’d brought pyjamas last night, although they’d ended up on the floor anyway. She pulled them back on so she could stumble downstairs. She’d learned around a week ago that having Isaac’s family just a few streets away meant it was best to be modest in the daylight hours, at least when outside of the bedroom.

Her pyjamas weren’t exactly sexy. They had little owls on them reading books, and were made out of fluffy flannel. They were, however, exceedingly comfortable, and Isaac very much approved of Belle being comfy.

She stumbled downstairs, lured in by the smell of bacon and hot coffee. “Coffeee,” she moaned as she entered the kitchen, and Isaac snickered.

He was in his pyjamas too. Belle was warming to the idea of jammies: he looked so rumpled and small and soft, so domestic, in his ratty robe and striped pyjamas. It was ten in the morning on a Sunday: they had nowhere to be, nothing to do, but be together.

Belle perched on a stool at the breakfast bar, and inhaled gratefully when he placed a stack of French toast and bacon in front of her, and a big mug of coffee. Milk and two sugars: just the way she liked it.

She took a long drink, and sighed, closing her eyes. Everything was warmth and sunlight today, the June sun beaming through the windows, hot coffee in her palms, the lassitude of sleep still deep in her bones. He’d cooked breakfast for her, and she grinned when she saw his hand appear before her, snatching a piece of her bacon.

Belle’s hand whipped out and grabbed his wrist. “Thief,” she accused.

“You weren’t eating it.”

“I’ve warned you about stealing my food,” she warned. He let her lift his wrist up to face-height, so she could take the bacon from his fingers with her teeth. She crunched it, still holding his hand close, and then playfully nipped at his fingers.

“I like to live dangerously,” he grinned, the response he always gave to her teasing threats. Her heart skipped a beat. She looked up into his eyes, 

Maybe this was what it was about, she thought: not an internal war, not a swelling moment in a restaurant or fireworks over the skyline. Just a cup of coffee, and waking up together every day, fuzzy pyjamas and stupid in-jokes, her hair a mess and him still seeing an angel. Maybe it wasn’t battle, but surrender: to peace, to contentment, to happiness and a commitment to work to maintain it. Waving a white flag to everything she’d felt for weeks but only just now understood, and letting it rush over her, clearing away the past and the fear and the pain, and letting the light in. 

Belle took a deep breath, gazing up into his beloved face, and tried to find a shred of the old fear, a block to the words bubbling in her throat.

There was none.

“I love you,” she said. The world stopped still.

He gaped at her, his hand slack in her grip, a thousand emotions rushing over his face. He didn’t reply; he didn’t know how to. 

“I love you,” she said, again, stronger, better this time, a whole torrent of feelings rushing out. “I love that you prefer tea but you still make amazing coffee. I love that you’re a closet Trekkie. I love that you make me breakfast in the morning, and that you’ve read every book I’ve recommended you and will fight me over them. I love how you’re so brave, even when you’re afraid. I love how you’re smarter than me, and you laugh at all my stupid jokes, and you’re willing to drive me an hour out of town just to go to a bookshop. I love your smile, and your soft hair, and the face you make when we’re in bed together, like you still can’t believe it’s real. I love that you accept everything I am, the good and the bad. I love how deeply you love: me and Neal and Emma and little Henry, but especially how you love me.”

She was breathing hard, unable to believe she’d said all of that, as if the floodgates had opened and she couldn’t have stopped if she’d tried. The words had just flooded from her mouth, spilling all over the floor.

“And I love how you steal my food,” she added. “Even when you know you’ll lose a hand.”

“That’s why I do it,” he replied, weakly. “Because I love how you always catch me.” He took a deep breath, and released it. A beatific smile came to his face, tears in his eyes. “I love you, too,” he said, and every cell in Belle’s body sang to hear it. “I love you more than I need to breathe. I love everything that you are.”

“Good,” she sighed, and then she had to get up off the stool, and run around the counter so she could throw herself into his arms. He hugged her close, as tight as he could, until she could hardly breathe. She was laughing; he was laughing, braced on the countertop so he could hold her weight. “Good thing,” she said, her mouth muffled in his chest.

“I love you,” she said again, pulling back, looking up into those beautiful warm eyes, full of love, full of wonder and hope and disbelief. She was crying; he was crying too. It felt like the very first day of her life, like everything was brand new just from saying words she’d been feeling for weeks, ever since her ‘episode’, longer perhaps. “I’ve loved you for so long, I just… I couldn’t say it.”

“I’ve loved you since the first night we met,” he told her, softly, his voice thick with emotion. “And I’ve loved you every moment since.”

“I love you too,” she said, again, her heart growing lighter with every admission. “I love you so much. All I want is to be with you.”

She didn’t know who kissed who: their mouths met in the middle, and his arms came around her waist, and they were kissing like their lives depended on it, like they could move mountains and break curses with just this kiss. It was homecoming, and peace, and promise for tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, stretching on into forever.

There were a million things she needed to tell him, explanations and apologies, plans and doubts, fears and exultations. They could all wait. 

Belle finally pulled back, and sucked in air as she rested her forehead to Isaac’s. Their breath met in the middle, warm and sweet. “I’m yours,” she promised, softly. “Forever.

“Forever,” he agreed. “My Belle, my love.”

“My Isaac,” she said, smiling. She kissed him again. The rest could wait: forever had only just begun, after all.


End file.
